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If there’s one plant that keeps my home-grown dream alive, it’s trusty rhubarb. Easy to grow and easier to cook, rhubarb is perfect for crumble, tarts, roasting and – surely its most important role – flavouring cocktails.

Buy new rhubarb crowns now and plant in full sun. Add a bucket of compost or well rotted manure before planting and bury the crowns about 3ft (1m) apart, 1in (3cm) below the soil surface. Rhubarb can be grown on patios and balconies in large containers (at least 1-1½ ft/30-40cm in diameter).

Varieties I like are ‘Temperley Early’, ‘Champagne’, ‘Victoria’ and ‘Valentine’ (try dobies.co.uk and others). Grow two or three varieties to taste-test them yourself. Replace the one you don’t like by dividing the one you do at no cost. Dividing is easy, lift in spring or autumn, slice with a spade into two pieces, each with roots and a growing point, then replant.

A perennial, rhubarb returns yearly with minimal care. Remove dead leaves in winter and mulch annually with compost or well-rotted manure. My plants were left by the previous allotment owner and they’ll continue for years to come.

Like Noah’s Ark, it’s best to own at least two rhubarb plants to produce lots of stems (the bit you eat) and to alternate which plant you “force” each year, to give each a rest. Forcing is the process of covering the top of the rhubarb with a bucket for a month or two from February, thus “forcing” the edible stems to find light. This elongates the stems and – for many cultivars – keeps them a glorious ruby red.

In spring, our two rhubarb plants produced enough stems every week to feed four people delicious crumble for two months. (When I say four people, I mean my partner and me.)